Research on Gravitational Waves and Black Hole Binaries

引力波和黑洞双星研究

• 批准号: 1506182
• 负责人: Charles Evans
• 金额: $ 16.5万
• 依托单位: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-06-01 至 2018-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1506182&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Research; Gravitational; Waves; Black; Hole

Astronomical observations have shown that virtually all massive galaxies can be expected to have a supermassive black hole residing at their center. Surrounded by dense star clusters, these black holes will frequently capture stars into highly eccentric orbits. A fraction of these stars will be compact objects: stellar mass black holes or neutron stars. As these compact stars orbit, they radiate gravitational waves, causing the orbit to decay and the star to eventually be swallowed by the supermassive black hole. The emitted radiation is potentially observable in future space-based gravitational wave detectors. The theoretical work funded by this award will provide better understanding of the expected signals from highly-eccentric compact merging binaries. Detection of gravitational waves from such extreme-mass-ratio binaries will provide a unique strong-field test of gravity and a probe of the nature of black holes. This award contributes to scientific workforce development through the involvement of graduate students and the training they receive in physical modeling, mathematical analysis, and numerical and computational methods.In greater detail, the primary research efforts associated with this award are: (1) refined development of two accurate mathematical and numerical gravitational self-force methods, and the associated computer codes, that are useful for computing gravitational waves from merging compact binaries with small mass ratios and highly eccentric orbits; (2) using one such method to make highly accurate comparisons of calculated gravitational waves with the distinct and complementary post-Newtonian approach; and (3) using the second numerical self-force method to calculate the orbital decay, gravitational wave emission, and merger of eccentric binaries in the late stages of their orbital decay.

天文观测表明，几乎所有大质量星系的中心都有一个超大质量黑洞。这些黑洞被密集的星星团所包围，经常会将恒星捕获到高度偏心的轨道上。 这些恒星中的一小部分将是紧凑的物体：恒星质量的黑洞或中子星。 当这些紧凑的恒星绕轨道运行时，它们会辐射引力波，导致轨道衰减，星星最终被超大质量黑洞吞噬。发射的辐射可能在未来的空间引力波探测器中被观测到。 由该奖项资助的理论工作将提供更好的理解高偏心紧凑合并双星的预期信号。 从这种极端质量比的双星中探测引力波将提供一个独特的强场引力测试和黑洞性质的探测。 该奖项通过研究生的参与以及他们在物理建模、数学分析、数值和计算方法方面接受的培训，为科学劳动力的发展做出了贡献。更详细地说，与该奖项相关的主要研究工作是：（1）改进了两种精确的数学和数值重力自作用力方法，以及相关的计算机代码，（2）用一种这样的方法对计算引力波与后牛顿方法进行高精度的比较;（3）用第二数值自引力方法计算了偏心双星在轨道衰变后期的轨道衰变、引力波发射和合并。